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UKfamsol, Family Solicitor

Category: Family Law

Satisfied Customers: 560

Experience: Very experienced specialist family law solicitor, qualifed in 1994

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Hi
I applied for a divorce using the 2 year seperation as

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HiI applied for a divorce using the 2 year seperation as grounds, my husband at the time was being reasonable but now he has the papers from court he refuses to sign and states he is not going to make it easy for me to divorce him, he claims to have ripped them up.We have no children or joint assets so it's straight forward. I had an affair and left him so he is bitter, however he refuses to divorce me and I want to move on now as I have a child with new partner and in the future want to remarry,What can I do? We have been separated over 2 years but don't see what other grounds I can now use. I did the papers myself for court.

You will have to amend the basis of your divorce petition to behaviour.

I hope you kept a copy of the petition that you sent to court? Because you will now need to file an amended petition at court. Make a copy of your current petition.

Then on the new copy, at the top of page 1, write AMENDED PETITION dated:........

Then on page 5 where it says "statement of case" put a neat line through what you havae written so far, and put your initials by the crossing out. Then underneath but within the statement of case box you can add "amended statement of case", then add a few sentences about your husband's behaviour, which you can compose by answering to yourself these questions: what was the first thing that happened in the marriage that made you realise that there were problems in the marriage? what was the worst thing that he did in the marriage? what was the last thing he did that made you decide that the marriage was at an end and you wanted a divorce? (Don't mention that you met someone new - the divorce petition when based on the other person's behaviour must solely focus on their faults, not yours). Then at the bottom of page 8, underneath your signature on the original petition, write neatly Re-signed:..................dated:........... Then sign on the dotted line and date the petition by your signature, and put the same date on the front page at the top, where you've written AMENDED PETITION.

Then make 3 copies of your amended petition. Keep one copy for yourself, and take the top copy of the resigned petition plus 2 copies to the court office.There is a court fee to file an amended petition - you will need to check with the court office. I think it's £50.

Normally the court would then again serve the amended petition by post, but if you are certain that your husband will just ignore them or rip them up, you can save time by getting a private process server to serve the divorce papers on your husband. It will then not be necessary for your husband to sign anything as the process server will give you a statement of service for you to file at court (but make sure you keep a copy for yourself) as proof that your husband has received the papers which will satisfy the court and you can then go on to he next stage in the divorce, which is to apply for the decree nisi.

To find a process server, you can look in yell.com. I have used Stephensons Investigations a lot. They are very pleasant and helpful to deal with, and their charges area reasonable. They are based in Leeds but have contacts throughout the UK. Their tel no is 0113(###) ###-####and their website is:

No problem! Just write neatly in the statement of case box underneath what you said about separation - or if you can't get it in the same box, write neatly underneath the whole box, or in the margin "for amended statement of case, see additional sheet attached". Then on a fresh sheet of paper, put a heading "Amended statement of case for the amended petition of (your name) case no: xxxxxx"

Then write (preferaby type) out your amended statement of case, and sign and date it. Then staple that to the amended petition.

PS when you're making copies of your amended petition, don't forget to make copies of your additional sheet with your amended statement of case on it - and staple one copy of your amended statement of case to each copy of your amended petition.

Oh! and one other alteration you need to make which I forgot to mention in my original answer - on page 4, part 5, there are 7 little boxes towards the bottom of the page. You will have ticked the 1st of these - seeking divorce etc. That doesn't need to change on your amended petition.

On your original petition, you will then have ticked the 7th box down as your original petition was based on 2 years separation with consent. So now, in your amended petition, you need to neatly put a line through that tick, and then write your intials to the side of your crossed-out tick. Then make a fresh tick in the 5th box down, to show that your amended petition is now based on behaviour, and put your intials to the side of the new tick.

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